The BEE Collective (Beloved Early Education and Care Collective) is celebrating eight years of building beloved community with its $80 for 8 fundraising campaign, inviting 100 supporters to give $80 in honor of the organization's eight years of community-led work. The campaign seeks to raise $8,000 in unrestricted support to sustain BEE Collective's ongoing work with birthing and early childhood families, birth workers, caregivers, educators, and community members. The campaign runs through August 31, 2026, culminating during Black Breastfeeding Week. To support the $80 for 8 campaign or learn more about BEE Collective, visit tinyurl.com/BEE80x8.
The campaign's message is simple: 100 people × $80 = $8,000. For BEE Collective, unrestricted support is essential. While grants often fund specific programs, unrestricted gifts provide the flexibility to keep Nsoromma House, BEE's brick-and-mortar Perinatal Safe Spot, open and welcoming; sustain community organizing; respond to emergency family needs; and address emerging needs identified by the community.
Eight Years of Listening, Learning and Building Together
BEE Collective emerged from years of listening to families and community members about the challenges affecting Black mothers, children, caregivers, and families in Berkeley County and across the Lowcountry. Beginning in 2017 and 2018, BEE brought parents, educators, healthcare providers, faith leaders, advocates, and community members together through Community Action Labs, data walks, healing dinners, and community conversations to identify challenges and imagine solutions together. Those early conversations shaped the foundation of BEE's work in birthing justice, early childhood, mental health, and healing justice.
Eight years later, that work has grown into a village that has supported hundreds of pregnant and parenting families, trained and supported 50 community doulas, established South Carolina's first grassroots-led Perinatal Safe Spot, created Nsoromma House as a community gathering place, and supported birth workers, educators, and caregivers throughout the Lowcountry.
Celebrating Black Breastfeeding Week
As part of the birthday celebration, BEE Collective will host A Celebration of Black Breastfeeding, Motherhood & Community on Sunday, August 23, 2026 from 4 until 6 p.m.
International African American Museum
14 Wharfside Street
Charleston, SC 29401
The community celebration will honor Black breastfeeding families, their stories, and the communities that surround them with care, while celebrating BEE Collective's eight years of collective work. The event will include a free photo shoot celebrating Black breastfeeding and motherhood, creating an opportunity for families to document and celebrate this important part of their stories. The gathering also honors the 2026 Black Breastfeeding Week theme, "We All We Got: 15 Years of Community, Care, and Collective Power."
Event registration is FREE and limited space is available. Registration is through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/
From a Storage Unit to a Home for Belonging
The celebration carries particular meaning for BEE Collective because its Perinatal Safe Spot began in remarkably humble circumstances. Before Nsoromma House, BEE met wherever community welcomed them—churches, libraries, parks, borrowed meeting rooms, partner organizations, and outdoors. The organization's first Perinatal Safe Spot operated out of a small storage unit.
Families came for diapers, formula, baby clothes, transportation, food, breastfeeding support, childbirth education, healthcare navigation, community doula connections—and, sometimes, simply someone who would listen. Eventually, that vision grew into Nsoromma House, a place where families can come not only during moments of crisis, but for joy, healing, learning, celebration, and belonging. Movement doesn't begin with buildings. It begins with people who are willing to open the door. That spirit continues to guide BEE Collective as it enters its ninth year.
To support the $80 for 8 campaign or learn more about BEE Collective, visit tinyurl.com/BEE80x8
To register for the August 23 celebration, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/